Jon, Ulysses, List, Ulysses’ museum specimen seems an especially good example because the same physical thing remains available to several communities while functioning differently within each of them. Jon’s second account therefore carries weight: biologists, museum administrators, and taxidermists bring different habits of interpretation formed by different practices and different collateral experience. No one has to retrospectively select a feature of the object since what each notices is already conditioned by their prior experience.
Still, I wonder whether Jon’s two alternatives, "two possible ways of accounting for different semiotic analyses of a particular sign token," need be sharply separated. The same token -- the specimen -- may participate in several sign types at once because -- as a biological example, as an asset of a museum, and as an instance of taxidermic technique -- *the physical token is constrained by different habits of interpretation*. The token remains the same, while the immediate objects differ. There may also be a sense in which the dynamical object also differs: the species in the first case, the institutional value in the second, and the preservation process in the third. Indeed, this may be what makes it a boundary object: It retains enough indexical continuity, so to speak -- it is *this particular specimen*-- to allow for communication across communities while remaining malleable enough to enter several different lines of inquiry, of semiosis. In a word, the communities are not united by identical interpretations, but they are also not dealing with wholly unrelated objects. I question treating collateral experience as another component added to the specimen to form a kind of composite sign. Rather, it supplies the prior acquaintance -- the collateral knowledge -- and the habits by which the sign’s object can be identified and interpreted. To repeat: our three interpreters do not first encounter an object and then simply freely select certain qualities. Rather, their training has already formed different interpretive habits. So, while I agree with the central point of Jon’s #2 I'd allow something of #1 as well. Different dynamical interpretants arise from different semiotic histories, yet those histories may also determine the specimen as a token of different sign types offering different immediate objects and, perhaps, even different -- though overlapping -- dynamical objects. That is to say that the “sameness” of a boundary object may itself be, shall we say, *semeiotically layered* rather than just 'given'. Best, Gary R On Sat, Sep 26, 2026 at 12:18 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote: > Ulysses, List: > > As I understand it, Peirce's semeiotic requires collateral > experience/observation for *identifying *the object of a sign; an > interpreter must in some way already be acquainted with that object in > order to understand any sign that refers to it. With that in mind, I can > suggest at least two possible ways of accounting for different semiotic > analyses of a particular sign token, such as a taxidermic specimen at a > museum. > > 1. The *dynamical *object is the same in all cases, but the *immediate > *object is different because the sign *type *is different in each > case; and since different sign types have different immediate and final > interpretants, it is not surprising that their sign tokens produce > different dynamical interpretants. > 2. The sign type is the same in all cases, such that its dynamical and > immediate objects are also the same, along with its immediate and final > interpretants; but the sign token determines different dynamical > interpretants in different interpreting quasi-minds because the latter have > been determined *previously *by different signs, resulting in > different habits of interpretation. > > Personally, I lean toward #2, which matches the colloquial description and > seems consistent with your hunch. > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Fri, Sep 25, 2026 at 5:34 PM Ulysses <[email protected]> wrote: > >> My understanding of a boundary object is something that means slightly >> different but partially overlapping things for different communities and >> thus can bring groups together but does not truly unite them. >> >> The example I am familiar with is a taxidermic specimen at a museum. For >> biologists it might be a token exemplar of a species. For museum >> administrators it might be valuable because of the relative rarity of >> species and how it aligns with the museum’s mission. In this case it would >> be sign of reputation or some social/normative value. For taxidermists >> themselves, the very same specimen might be a sign of specific techniques >> of animal preservation. >> >> I think examples like this bring about a few questions for Peircean >> semiotics. While colloquially we say it is the same object, is the object >> of the sign really the same in each of these cases? What is the sign in >> each of these cases, and does it include what Peirce sometimes terms >> collateral experience/collateral observation? For example do the different >> rational communities bring different experiences to bear on the object >> (based on their training) and form different composite signs (specimen + >> collateral experience) which form the basis of different interpretants? >> >> It seems like each group is picking up on different iconic and indexical >> qualities that coexist in the same object. Colloquially I would say they >> form different interpretations of the same thing. The way I would normally >> talk about it would include how individual acts of deliberation are >> consciously choosing to focus on different aspects of the object. I am not >> exactly sure how to square this with a language of interpretants where >> interpretants are always the product of previous steps in process because >> it seems like there are interpretative acts being made that single out what >> qualities in the object are being attended to before the object is even >> considered as a sign. >> >> My hunch would be that, through different training, people habituate >> their individual minds to form different percepts when in contact with the >> same object and this becomes the foundation of different perceptual >> judgements, leading to different chains of semiosis. In this case it’s not >> that the interpretant formed is reaching back in time and selecting the >> qualities in the object but rather a long running chain of previous >> semiosis is already forming different intermediate signs which become the >> inputs to the different interpretants. >> > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] > . > ► <a href="mailto:[email protected]";>UNSUBSCRIBE FROM > PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default > email account, then go to > https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . > ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and > co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . ► <a href="mailto:[email protected]";>UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
